Decaying Pillsbury mill in Illinois that once churned flour into opportunity is now getting new life
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — It was the dog, trapped atop grain silo skyscrapers on Springfield's northeast side in 2019, that forced Chris Richmond's hand.
The stray dog had found its way to the top of the massive Pillsbury Mills, a flour-churning engine of the central Illinois city's economy for decades but now empty for more than two decades. Rescue was too risky amid such decay, officials said.
The brief but uncertain appearance of the dog, which was found dead on the ground days later after ingesting rat poison, represented the hopelessness of the vacant campus, Richmond recalled.
“That's when I said, 'This is just unacceptable in our community,'” said the 54-year-old retired city fire chief, whose father's salary in Pillsbury made him and his brother first-generation college graduates.
A year later, Richmond and his allies came up with a nonprofit called Moving Pillsbury Forward and a five-year, $10 million plan to raze the century-old factory and renovate the 17-acre site.
Richmond, the group's president and treasurer, Vice President Polly Poskin and Secretary Tony DelGiorno have $6 million in commitments and goals for collecting the balance.
Having already razed two structures, the group expects the wrecking ball to swing even more feverishly next year. In addition to a railway yard with national connections, they envision a light-industrial future.
Meanwhile, Moving Pillsbury Forward has managed to turn the dilapidated site in Illinois' capital into a leisure destination that borders on a cultural phenomenon.
Tours are very popular and repeated. Oral histories emerged. Spray paint vandals, encouraged rather than arrested, have become artists in residence for nightly graffiti exhibitions attended by more than 1,000 people.
Retired University of Illinois archaeologist Robert Mazrim has mined artifacts and assembled an “Echoes of Pillsbury” museum under a leaky loading dock roof. This month, the factory's towering main building will be ablaze with Christmas lights.
Perhaps what sets it apart is the exuberance with which Moving Pillsbury Forward approaches its task. But in terms of activist groups pursuing such formidable reclamation ambitions, it's not unusual, says David Holmes, a Wisconsin-based environmental scientist and brownfield redevelopment consultant.
Government funding has expanded to accommodate them.
“You find some high-caliber organizations that really focus on the areas with the biggest problems, these most needy neighborhoods,” Holmes said. “Often cities (local governments) are focused on their downtown or whatever causes the mayor to cut the ribbon.”
Minneapolis-based Pillsbury built the Springfield campus in 1929 and expanded it several times in the 1950s. A bakery mix division produced the world's first boxed cake mixes after World War II.
There is circumstantial evidence that the Pillsbury dough boy, the brand's main mascot, was first drawn by a credit-shunning Springfield factory manager, and not, as the company claims, by a Chicago advertising agency.
Pillsbury sold the plant in 1991 to Cargill, which left ten years later. A scrap dealer broke the law by improperly removing asbestos in 2015, prompting a $3 million U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleanup. After the dog's cameo, Moving Pillsbury Forward persuaded the EPA to withdraw a lien for the cleanup costs and purchased the property for $1.
Now all that's left is to clean up the remaining asbestos and lead paint chips before demolishing more than 46,450 square meters of factory buildings, including a 73.8-metre main building that is the third tallest in the city. structure and 160 silos, four next to each other and 30.5 meters high.
“It's discouraging. Everything about this place is terrifying,” Richmond admits. “But a journey of 1,000 miles starts with the first step, right?”
The timing is good. According to Holmes, there is more money than ever available to clean up America's left behind.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 included $1.2 billion for brownfield cleanup, four times the usual annual allocation amount. The Pillsbury group wants to add $2.6 million of the total to what the group has already been promised by the federal, state and Springfield governments.
The application capitalizes on the intangible benefits: economic and environmental justice that leverages the 12,000 people who live within 1 mile of the plant, only 25% of whom have a high school diploma and whose median household income is $25,000 .
“It's a hard sell, but at some point there are enough people who have a vision of what it could be and that's a powerful incentive,” Poskin said. “It'll be nothing until what's there is gone. No developer is going to take on a $10 million cleanup job.”
The group also wanted to preserve memories of the place they are trying to demolish. Former employees and neighbors have clamored for spots on ongoing tours and posed for group photos.
On a historic seniority list on display, next to “Jackson, Ernest, 1937” is the message: “Hello Grandpa. We visit your workplace of 42 years.” Richmond and Mazrim have collected more than a dozen oral histories from former employees. Photographers document what remains for historical context.
And it has become an unlikely canvas. Minneapolis graffiti artists who call their work “Shock” and “Static” were surreptitiously decorating the site in September when Richmond and Mazrim confronted them. Rather than file trespassing charges, Richmond invited them to an exhibition. The late-night November show proved so popular that Richmond added a second date.
Artist Eric Rieger, known to fans as HOTTEA, also took part, creating a huge, rectangular grid of blacklight-lit strings of neon yarn hanging from the ceiling in a “cathedral-like” setting. His goal was “a feeling of truly positive energy,” reminiscent of the wonderful memories employees experienced.
“They were so enthusiastic and you rarely see that these days,” Rieger said on the evening of the first exhibition on November 9. “I really respect what they did for this community because they are the backbone of America – they fed America.”
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Associated Press researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed.